A view of tourists on a street in Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu Province, on October 3, 2023. Photo: VCG

Editor's Note:

The "Cognitive Warfare" has become a new form of confrontation between states, and a new security threat. With new technological means, it sets issues and spreads disinformation so as to change people's perceptions and thus alter their self-identity. Launching cognitive warfare against China is an important means for Western anti-China forces to attack and discredit the country. Under the manipulation of the US-led West, the "China threat theory" has continued to ferment. 

Some politicians and media outlets have publicly smearing China's image by propagating the tones like "China's economy collapse theory" and "China's virus threat theory," in an attempt to incite and provoke dissatisfaction of people in some countries with China. These means all serve the peaceful evolution strategy of the US to contain China's rise and to maintain its hegemony.

The Global Times is publishing a series of articles to systematically reveal the intrigues of the US-led West's cognitive warfare targeting China, expose its lies and vicious intentions, in an attempt to show international readers a true, multi-dimensional and panoramic view of China. 

This is the second installment in the series.

When the Chinese economy faces a tough time during June and July, with major economic indicators showing a trend moving toward a pessimistic direction, a chorus of voices pushing the "China collapse" theory across some Western media reached a frenzied pitch, churning out some of the most sensational and absurd stories of the year in their cognitive warfare against China.

In addition to the ongoing issue of biased coverage of China, a number of falsehoods have recently emerged in several highly regarded Western journalistic publications. The Global Times analyzed some of the most commonly used tricks appeared in these products of rogue journalism and identified the four most prevailing techniques: double standards, selective blindness, manipulation of statistics and misleading expectations. 

The article aims to dig into the details of how these four techniques are applied by certain Western media outlets when it comes to smearing and discrediting China's economy, and even profiting from it.

Double standards

"Double standards" have become the secret holy grail held by some Western media when it comes to reporting on China's economy. This bias has led to their reports set up with similar angles and laden with extreme view points.

In June 2022, UK-based The Economist published a story with the headline "In stamping out covid, China has stomped on confidence." Then in November, the magazine ran a story titled "Ending China's zero-covid policy could unleash chaos." Then again, in spring, as China reopened, this same newspaper runs a piece "How China's reopening will disrupt the world economy."

Any reader who strenuously followed all the stories published by this magazine following this timeline would see that to The Economist, whether China removes epidemic control measures or not, the Chinese economy will suffer, and even the world economy stands to lose. In both cases it is China's wrong, so that China can be wronged twice.

Recently, some Western media outlets including the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times have attributed the weak performance of Japan and South Korea to a slowing of the Chinese economy. However, these reports conveniently omitted the US wreaking havoc across global markets with its "decoupling" and "de-risk" push targeting China and intervention that impeded trade between these countries with China.

Other facts that have conveniently gone missing include the US' debt ceiling crisis, downgraded ratings, the banking crisis in the West and protectionist measures like the US Inflation Reduction Act that include unfair subsidy provisions.

There were other times, when the Chinese economy somewhat outperformed expectations in certain sectors, and was quickly labeled as a threat to the global economy.

This week, in tandem with the European Commission's so-called anti-subsidy investigation into Chinese electric vehicles, a common word that appeared in the headlines of stories run by The New York Times, Financial Times and Wall Street Journal was the "threat" of China. 

Those media outlets often vacillate between their so-called "China collapse" theory and "China threat" theory, spinning between "China is collapsing" and "China is a threat" as the Chinese economy experience ups and downs on the arduous path to recovery. 

Selective blindness

In September, Michael Yon, who calls himself "America's most experienced combat correspondent," posted pictures depicting an empty coffee shop and deserted streets in Shanghai's financial center Lujiazui on the US social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. "China is showing the most signs of an economy in trouble. Shanghai is a ghost town compared to what it was," Yon wrote in the post.

The US news magazine Newsweek was quick to cite it, without any level of fact checking, when it perceived an opportunity to stoke its agenda to smear China. In the article, the publication, turning a blind eye to the long list of follow-up posts by netizens claiming the contrary, suggestively asked "Has China's Shanghai turned into 'ghost town'?" 

The article, despite noting "disputes" over how the pictures were used via social media, also claimed that "economists have raised concerns about the state of the Chinese economy." 

In fact, the US coffee chain Starbucks, which in the latest fiscal quarter saw its China revenue jump 51 percent year-on-year and has opened up more shops in the period when the article emerged than the two previous quarters combined. And it's unlikely the coffeemaker was opening up shops in empty areas. 

While the whole news product is a fake and absurd slander, it served its purpose - to paint a gloomy portrait of the Chinese economy which is experiencing hardship during an unprecedented economic recovery and further dent confidence in China at a crucial moment.

The fail-safe excuses of these Western media seem to be: while the fact we point out may not be as correct as it should be or even completely false, our concern that the Chinese economy might not be doing OK is always forgivable, or even commendable.

Analysts noted the absence of logic in this approach, saying that it kills the essence of journalism and such ignorance and negligence should not be tolerated. The phenomenon also reflected a deep-down impulse by some Western media and establishment to throw whatever they have at China to contain the country's growth and development.

But one thing is for sure: to underreport the positive news about China's economy and to spread panic and misinformation is a common tactic employed by some Western media when it comes to discrediting China.

Between August 25 and 30, The New York Times ran a total of nine stories devoted to examining problems across the Chinese economy. The topic ranged from China's real estate debt and "How should the West mange China's decline" to "The Scientist Who Foresaw China's Stagnation" and a crisis of confidence in China.

Then, on September 15, when China published its economic data for August and the data pointed toward a marked improvement and a turning point from an earlier phased slowdown, guess how many articles the same newspaper wrote? Just one. And the article reluctantly admitted "Chinese consumers are spending a little more," but noted that "apartment prices and the pace of construction keep falling."

Many Western media outlets eagerly reported China's customs import and export data while largely ignoring the balance of payments data, despite the fact that the latter data, with standardized global accounting practices, offered a more meaningful window into China's economic performance.

Analysts said the deep-seated reason behind this slanted coverage is the significant seasonal fluctuations in customs data, while China's balance of payments data remained largely stable and its proportion to the GDP has continued to be within a reasonable range, and therefore, less leverageable for their angled reports to attack China. 

Yu Miaojie, the president of Liaoning University, told the Global Times that the "China collapse" theory pushed by the West since the 1990s, with claims of Chinese exports underperforming is also a well-worn attack line. .

"They often adopt fragmentary narratives, zoom in on certain negative events and irresponsibly connect dots between single and isolated cases to spin their narrative. They focus on problematic trees and intentionally leave the overall healthy state of the forest untold," Yu said.

Yet the fact that such claims have repeated run into wall of facts have not prevented a continued avalanche of anti-China sentiment, Yu said, noting that some Western media's obstinately clinging to the belief that their model is the only viable model and the deep-down denial of the existence, let alone the success of the Chinese economic model.

Manipulation of statistics

Smart welding robots perform welding operations in an automotive production welding workshop in Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality on March 1, 2023. Photo: Xinhua

The manipulation of statistics in an effort to favorably portray Western economies and cast doubt on China's economy is yet another tactic used by the Western media, who often describe themselves as impartial and data driven. 

For instance, The Economist's cover story on August 26 stated that China's annualized growth rate in the second quarter was a disappointing 3.2 percent, whereas a seemingly robust US economy posted an annualized growth rate of nearly 6 percent.

The data is appalling. Insightful readers would be alerted by the growth data of the US, as the US economy's averaged growth rate in the decade prior to the pandemic only came at 2.25 percent, and now, there is a 6-percent growth?

In fact, the estimate that the US economy would see a "nearly 6 percent growth" was based on a prediction within a model issued by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, even as the bank itself had cautioned that this prediction was unreliable and was double that of market expectations.

The article deliberately overlooked data from China's National Bureau of Statistics, which showed year-on-year growth rate of 6.3 percent for the quarter. Instead, it chose a quarter-on-quarter growth rate of 0.8 percent and projected this rate over the next three quarters to calculate the annualized growth rate, producing a lower figure than the year-on-year data.

If calculated with the method they used to assess China's economy, the US annualized GDP growth in the second quarter of 2023 would be 2.1 percent, lower than that of China's.

Analysts noted that manipulation of data by using non-comparable statistical methods is the opposite of professional journalism and serves certain Western media's malicious intents to undermine China. By making China look weak, they hope they could comfort their readers amidst high and untamed inflations inflicted by the irresponsible policies of their governments.

Jeff Zhang, a senior vice president with a Hong Kong-based bank, told the Global Times that one of underlying reasons for these distorted presentation of the Chinese economy is the hidden motivation by Western media to shepherd international capital and investors away from the Chinese market, as draining such valuable resources away from China will hinder the country's effort to catch-up technologically and cultivate new strategic industries.

Misleading expectations

Liu Ying, a research fellow from the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China, told the Global Times that perhaps where these Western media truly excel is the timing they chose to promulgate their fake news.

The Chinese economy went through a tough period in the summer, with major indicators in June and July falling below expectations. Instead of wanting to see the phenomenon in a rational light, as economies around the world suffered a long and arduous process after the reopening, and recognize the wave-like and zigzag nature of trajectory of Chinese economic recovery, some Western media took the opportunity to push fear and crisis.

They intentionally constructed a narrative suggesting that China's consumer market should experience an immediate "revenge" surge, and China's economy should maintain a "strong rebound." Adding that deviation from these so-called "constructed expectations" was a clear sign that they want to send: China's economy was in big trouble.

Rogue journalism has not gone unnoticed by those with insights around the world and these Western media's move of tarnishing their own credibility has its consequences.

On October 4, Richard Kozul-Wright, the director of United Nation Conference on Trade and Development's Globalisation and Development Strategies division, criticized the prevailing pessimism surrounding the Chinese economy, according to AFP. The UN official said his institution "certainly don't agree with the almost hysterical reaction some of the Western press has adopted toward China."

"Badmouthing China and Russia sell newspapers! Anyway, I cancelled my subscriptions. The [Western] media only add to their own self-inflicted delusions and nightmares," a user commented.

The research fellow Liu warned that established and respectable Western financial institutions are increasingly colluding with Western politicians and media, issuing biased reports or ratings designed to undermine the Chinese economy and profit from the chaos as they pick up assets at low prices by those who become snared in their misinformation.